Heyhey In Rockers and Welcome once again to The Lobby, a monthly opportunity for me to review the last 30 days of my life and share them with you the In Rock Readers as we have been doing for the past decade here in these pages. This is a pretty unique month for me I must say, aside from the usual musical adventures included in a typical month for me (I’ll get into that later) I have become a (nearly) full time Iku Men with my wife Miyoko currently being on tour with Osaka’s Shonen Knife here in the US. After 5 years of sharing our lives w/ our daughter Hana, for the first time since she was born I am a FULL TIME solo Daddy and it’s been a wild ride so far!

Aside from the daytime when Hana is in pre-school, I’m playing restaurant with a huge cast of dolls and stuffed animals, making soap foam pies in the tub, dancing to Michael Jackson at 7 am at a makeshift disco in our living room among other equally as amazing moments … these are the awesome moments my days are made of. My daughter is learning Japanese as well, so every morning after breakfast before school we do a Skype lesson with my wife to keep up with the class. My ability to speak Japanese is not the best (and I think I may be giving myself a bit too much credit), but my writing ability is non-existent (aside from my name in katakana and a few other choice characters!) so the morning Japanese lessons are a super important part of our day. I’m picking up some knowledge along the way, in Japanese and also some insight into how to deal with a 5-year-old little girl full time and tending to all of the things that are important to her. In short, I’m having a blast spending time with my little girl, but it will be great to have Miyoko back, and have our family back together again for a little while before we start the next chapter of this story with a 60 date Goo Goo Dolls tour in July.

Speaking of Goo Goo Dolls, our new EP “You Should Be Happy” was just released featuring some new tracks to take out on the road this Summer. The new single “Use Me” was released this week as well, we’re super excited to have some new music out for everyone to hear and can’t wait to get out on the road again to make some more music. In the meantime we just finished up a benefit show in New York City for The Toys R Us Children’s fund that helped us donate a huge check to St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital, as well as a local Buffalo women’s shelter called Compass House and my music education organization Music is Art.

I’ve been busy doing a few other things as well of course, I sang lead vocals on the theme song for a new indie horror film “Johnny Gruesome” which will be out in 2017, it was recorded with past GGDS producer and friend of the band Armand Petri (Sixpence None The Richer, Man O War, 10,000 Maniacs) and we should have something for you to hear in the next few months! The rest of my time has been filled with readying The Music is Art Festival (it’s 15th year) in Buffalo, a day long festival with 15 stages, artists, DJS, dancers, musicians, thespians and a cast of weirdoes that make a 15 hour spectacle of sonic and visual stimulation presented from the talented community I live in. This year after nearly a decade in a beautiful park in downtown Buffalo we are moving down to a venue/industrial area by th Buffalo River for a change of venue and re-imagining of the event. It’s a ton of work, but for a ton of reward, just like anything good in life ….. ok, that’s it for me this week, I’ve got one more private show tonite in Arizona w/ GGDS and it’s back to Buffalo and those super tasty soap foam pies in the tub w/ Hana!

Have a great month; I’ll be back with more from the tornado of activity that is my life…. We’ll talk to you soon!